


Without a Boatman

by Kaleran



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Barricade Day 2018, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Drowning, Other, POV The Seine, So I guess that technically makes this het, Valjean is also here i guess, Yeah you read that right, happy barricade day have some character death, she/her pronouns for the Seine, the ultimate otp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaleran/pseuds/Kaleran
Summary: Javert takes to watching the Seine.The Seine takes to watching Javert.A love story between a man of stone and an eternal river.





	Without a Boatman

**Author's Note:**

> I've been trying to finish this in time for Barricade Day but obviously I'm a bit late on that. OTL 
> 
> Someone once gave me a joke prompt of "lol what if the real OTP is Javert/The Seine" and anyway I ran with it and it is no longer a joke and I might actually ship them. I hope you ship them too. The Seine is wonderful and I love her.
> 
> As always, if you see any errors please let me know!

The boy has a fascination with her.

He is much like any other boy who stares into her depths. Millions had come before him and millions will come after. Some only spare her a single glance; others watch her for hours. There are priceless paintings of her that are admired by all, songs inspired by her, ballads written in her honor. Some see her as a means of travel, as a muse, a thing of beauty. Other see her as a barrier, an eyesore, a means to an end. What people think of her rarely matters. She is endless, timeless, and she watches them all bustle about the city with a mother's pride.

But even mothers have their favorites.

This boy does not visit Paris often. His visits are sporadic at best but he always spends long hours at her banks, watching her calm surface. She likes artists over any others, the kind that attempt to capture her essence on a canvas or words on a page or music in the air. This boy is clearly not an artist, yet still he watches her for hours on end. He is different than most other boys who skip stones over her surface or run alongside her with joyful laughter. This boy is quiet, staying in one place but never quite still.

The boy does not come back for many years. Other people come to her banks and observe her, walking across the bridges man built to admire her from above. None of them are quite like the boy. When he returns, he is a young man. He is no longer dressed in the rags of his childhood and now wears the waistcoat and overcoat of his new class. He carries an iron tipped cane with him always. A symbol that he enforces the law of man. He frequently looks at his own reflection in her waters and makes minor adjustments to his wardrobe. He often frowns.

She is curious about him. It is usually artists and drunks who watch her so contentedly but he is neither. He never brings a companion or a lover to her banks as others often do, but takes long walks at her side, crossing streets and bridges as he goes. On such walks, he often mutters to himself about whatever crosses his mind. None of it interests her, as it is about boring people that irritate him or stern reminders to himself, but she pays attention to his words. She knows everything happening in the city from listening to the people walking past her, every scrap of gossip and every word of discrete information. The young man mutters to himself and she listens, his only confident.

The first thing she learns is his name. He often speaks to himself as an outsider, saying, "Javert, you are foolish," and, "be alert, Javert".

 _Javert_.

She likes it. The name is like a stone dropping into water, sending strong ripples in its wake. He holds himself stiffly, like he is stone himself.

 _Javert_.

It is fitting.

The second thing she learns is how engrossed he is in his work. It is almost all he speaks of. She recognizes other names he mentions, others who walk beside her and across her at times. They are also enforcers of the law of man. He wishes to learn from them, to emulate their actions until he is one of them. She hears other speak of Javert, some thinking him strange and others thinking his dedication to work admirable. They do not know him like she does. He is strange, different from the rest, because of his dedication.

She likes how stubborn he is. He never simply does something as others do. When he makes a decision, he throws himself fully into the task and refuses to give in until it is done. He has decided to be an enforcer of man's law, and so he will endure the reports and the reading that he often expresses his despise for, he will endure the whispers and stares of others. No matter the case, he refuses to submit to failure. He fights for his place in the world, anchoring himself tightly so he cannot be moved.

She is also stubborn; wearing down boulders to gravel and sand over millennia, carving her own path through solid rock. They have that in common.

The third thing she learns is that he is not in Paris for long. He wishes for promotion and that would not happen in Paris. Someday, he hopes to be transferred elsewhere to rise in the ranks.

It is the way of people to travel about from place to place like sparrows flying from tree to tree on a whim. She does not understand it. Rivers flow, but they do not move. Her beginning and her end are fixed. She will never end anywhere but the sea. All people, in Paris or elsewhere along her great length, are not bothered by traveling. Change does not phase them. She cannot imagine change.

Javert is a man of routine. Every evening he walks along her banks, arms crossed over his chest and his chin buried into his cravat. He pauses often to rest a hand on the side of a bridge to watch her silently. There are very few people who look at her so often. Many tend to overlook her as simply a feature of the city, caught up in their own busy lives, but she is far older than even the oldest building in Paris. Javert never forgets her, always giving her his singular focus. He does not paint her or write about her, yet he gives her more careful attention than any artist.

He fascinates her.

He will leave her.

"I will need better boots," he mutters to himself one day. "Winters will be colder. I cannot afford to freeze." He stops to stare into her waters. "I need to reserve a carriage. From Paris to Arras, then Arras to Montreuil-sur-Mer. At least I will be an Inspector." He does not smile, but his constant frown lessens into something resembling pride.

She does not want him to leave.

 _Stay,_ she urges him, dazzling him with the reflection of the fading light on her surface. _Stay_.

"I will miss the Seine," he says, patting the stone parapet with a gloved hand.

She will miss him as well.

Javert is gone and Paris is empty without him. There are other people to watch, to listen to, but none are like him. She is still painted by artists and admired by lovers, capturing their attention with her beauty, but they are fleeting. Their attention does not last. There is no one to walk alongside her banks every evening and speak of the hardships of the day. If news of Javert reaches Paris, she does not hear it.

 _Come back_ , she hopes. _Return to me_.

Years pass. Winter comes and brings her stillness. Spring thaws her and her waters roar with life. Summer lends its sun to warm her cool depths. Autumn sees her dressed in colorful leaves. The cycle on nature repeats on and on as it has since the first dawn on Earth. She does not forget Javert.

She wonders, sometimes when she thinks of him, if he has found another river to walk beside and share his thoughts. Her rapids thunder and whip white water into the air as she ponders it. Such a river could not be as grand as her, nor as beautiful or as powerful. Surely it would be unsatisfying to walk beside such an inferior river.

When Javert returns to Paris, he is raging as strongly as her most powerful rapids.

"I had him," he growls. His steps are long and deliberate; his face twisted into a ferocious snarl. "I had him! How did he escape me? He was there in my grasp, and then gone. I will find him, track him down, and then I will arrest him. He will not escape me the next time.”

She rages beside him, her waters frothing joyously in his presence. He walks alongside her banks for long hours, growling to himself about some other who had broken the law of man and had evaded Javert’s iron claws. She understands little, but listens in sympathetic fascination. What does it matter if a man lives in the city or a prison? What does it matter if a man acts as per his nature? Nature cannot change; she knows this most of all. Javert knows this as well.

“A mayor!” he spits. “He took me for a fool. I have served a convict these last years. There was no Monsieur le Maire in that wrenched town. I thought, no, I _knew_ that he was no mayor, but did I arrest him? No! Did I question him? No! The fault lies within myself. I, Javert, failed in my duty. I, Javert, let him escape. Soon. Soon I will catch him for good and then that shall be justice.”

He nods sharply to himself at that.

 _You will_ , she says encouragingly him. A chill breeze from her waters to cool his raging temper blows against his coat, causing it to sway. Javert falls silent and still, his hands falling on the stone railing and eyes falling shut for a moment. A breath. All is quiet.

“Jean Valjean is a convict and will always be a convict,” he says quietly sometime later, his fingers gripping tight to the parapet. “For all his so-called charity, he is a convict.”

She knows nothing of this Jean Valjean he speaks of. The name is new to her. It matters little. Humans are fleeting, their lives so short compared to her eternity. They come and go like mayflies, moving in and out of her city, passing through and crossing her bridges with hardly a glance in her direction. She should not care about this stern, unsmiling man who does not endeavor to record her beauty for generations to come. He will die someday, likely far away from her banks, but she cannot help but think of him. He is unchanging. He is like her. He is the closest thing she has seen to a river in the form of a man.

Javert is reinstalled in Paris. He remains an Inspector and speaks proudly of his rank to her. Occasionally, he will go on to explain things that had happened away from her waters as if speaking to her as an equal, then cut himself off and shake his head muttering chastising thoughts to himself. She learns of the Luxembourg gardens, of the Montparnasse cemetery, of the many streets far away from her waters. When he speaks of places close to her banks, he sometimes shakes his head and adds, “but you already know that.”

Even now, years later, she has never seen anyone walk beside him as a friend. Comrades, yes, but never someone who she could ever call him friendly with. He tends to hold himself stiffly and to talk sharply even in the presence of other officers. It is something she admires about him, to see him as rough and as stiff as rock. Her waters could smooth him over, calm his sharp edges but never take away his solidness. Clearly these traits are not desirable among humans as she overhears those same officers complain about him later with their own friends. She has watched other officers of Javert’s station find friendship and romance, bringing their children to play by her shores, but Javert does not have anyone. He is singular, iron among the malleability of other men, an island of one. The only company he keeps is hers.

“I was asked today if I had a _mistress_ ,” he says once, his lip curling in a sneer. His voice warps the word into something ugly and undesirable and, had she not seen hundreds of thousands of men clearly in love with their mistresses along her banks, she would think having a mistress as a most revolting thing. “Pah! As if I would want such a distraction from my work. If I am devoted to a mistress, then how am I to be devoted to my duty? Others can afford such a distraction, but not I. Perhaps my officers should be more devoted to their duties instead of interfering with my loyalties. They would certainly perform better if they ceased to be so annoying.”

He continues to visit her every evening without fail, as unwaveringly loyal to her as he is to the law of man. She wonders at this, if this is perhaps a strange courtship between them. A man might bring flowers to his intended every week or read poetry at her leisure, but Javert does nothing of the sort. He brings only himself and his time and speaks to her as an equal. To have the singular, focused attention of such an observant man is gift enough and more flattering than any portrait that has ever been painted of her. He never seems to grow tired of looking at her, often spending long hours in silence staring out over her surface. She never tires of listening to him speak of his cases, of his officers that cause him such irritability, of his days away from her shores.

If she were human, she thinks she could love Javert.

However, she is not human. She is a river; she is the mighty Seine of Paris. As much as she observes, as much as she desires, she cannot precisely know what such things such as love are. She is infinite; humans are not.

He starts saying, “Thank you,” and, “You remember when…” and, “Although it is foolish, let me ask…” in the evenings, speaking to her like he would another person save for she has never seen him as relaxed around other people than he is alone at her side. She responds, silently with, _You are welcome_ , and, _I remember_ , and, _Go on_. Her surface changes slightly, the currents underneath altering to fit her mood. Such changes go unnoticed by him, as observant as he is. They are emotions unique to a river. Javert wears his emotions clearly on his surface.

“Valjean is in Paris,” Javert starts, teeth clenched and hand gripped tightly on his cane.

She remembers Valjean. He has spoken of him at length, cursing his cunningness. A currant swirls into an eddy near where Javert is standing.

“I saw him today, I believe. He was gone before I could confirm his identity, leaving through the window while I was distracted with arresting the Patron-Minette.” He snarls in her direction for a moment longer with unfocused eyes. Then, strangely, he smiles. It is not wide and joyous like the smiles of other men. His is small and tight, but full of pride. She has never seen it before. “I arrested most of the Patron-Minette today, at long last.”

He has told her about the Patron-Minette gang many times in many different tones. She has heard all his theories about where they meet and what their goals are, listened to all his venting rages about how they have escaped him yet again.

 _You did well_ , she says in swirling currents.

The smile remains on his face a moment longer, then falls into its normal scowl again. “To know that Valjean still roams free and is in Paris… I can only hope that the opportunity to catch him arises again. One criminal gang is enough; Paris does not need two.” A pause. His frown deepens and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Unless they are working together…”

He trails off into various theories, a stream of half-finished thoughts that flow like water. There is something about this Valjean man that snares his attention. Not even the triumph of arresting the gang he has been after for years can completely distract him from this new scrap of information. She can only imagine that it was something this Valjean has done to him in the past. It is the one thing he does not speak of thoroughly, often sending himself into a frustrated rage if he ever starts talking about the years he spent in the town by the sea.

It takes him a full half hour to come to a stop, his fingertips grazing the stone railing that separates them. His constant frown has eroded deep lines on his face. She thinks, maybe, that the reflection of sunlight on her surface makes the shadows they cast less harsh. Sunlight seems to be a cure for many things that ail humans. She sends up currents from her depths to stir her waters, sending dazzling light into his eyes. He blinks, then looks away.

He is different than any other human she has ever observed, his attention more satisfying than any artists’. She compares Javert to others that walk by her banks and none of them interest her like he does. The people of Paris change even from one day to the next, their loyalties and their ideals bending easily to time and pressure. None of them are stone, none of them as unyielding or as steadfast. He is man, yes, but he does not act like one.

“I must not be distracted,” he mutters.

Her water glitters and shines in an attempt at lightening his spirits. He breathes. There is weariness in his form.

“Will he evade me again? Will I ever be able to catch him? He is a strong man, far stronger than any other man I have known.” Javert’s hands curl into fists of rock. “Am I not enough?”

 _You are_ , she says, flashing the fading sunlight upon him. Javert has told her his secrets, confided in her silence of the shame of his origins and the secret thoughts he has of his superiors when he finds them weak or their ways inefficient, but never has he stumbled like this. This failure has chipped away at him, striking tiny sand grains off his stubborn will.

Javert is silent. She spirals her currents into pleasing swirls and alters her surface to reflect the rosy sunset in the most artistic manner in an effort to raise his spirits. Javert will succeed. How can he not? Surely this Valjean, although she has never seen him, is not as hard or as durable as Javert. Javert is granite, quartz even; this Valjean may as well be soft as soapstone.

Who is this terrible man who has drawn Javert’s focus? He is a distraction, a piece of debris choking the stream of Javert’s usual organized thought. Tonight, Javert does not look at her so much as he glares at his reflection on her surface. When he leaves, he walks away angry and tense, fists of stone shoved deep in the pockets of his coat. Water swirls in waves in her irritation. She will listen for news of this Valjean, this criminal who has drawn Javert’s focus from her like no other has. He must be truly terrible if he has escaped Javert, who is as dedicated to his work as she is dedicated to her banks.

Javert continues to walk alongside her and tell her of his day, but more and more he speaks of this convict Valjean and glares at the cobblestones instead of looking to her for comfort. She tries to capture his attention with interesting ripples and joyful waves, but he is not deterred from his musings. His arms cross his chest, his hat nearly covering his eyes, his chin all but disappeared behind the collar of his coat, and a harsh scowl on his face. It irritates her. How dare this criminal be worthier of his attention than her? He is nothing, he is simply an ordinary human of little consequence. Someday he will die and Javert will no longer be bothered with him; can Javert not see that?

Javert too is human. She often forgets that he is not as eternal as she, that he is of flesh and not of stone. He would understand if he were stone.

The day that the Patron-Minette is found missing from their cells, Javert is once again in a frothing rage. He paces between bridges, walking in large circles, hurling blame at the guards for being too lax, at the cells not being as secure as they should, at himself for allowing them to escape. At times he pauses to vent his frustrations by slamming his fist onto the parapet, his ferocious glare aimed at no one but himself. She watches him as he winces from such an action, turning his glare to his hand as if to scold it for paining him.

“The only one to blame is I, Javert,” he growls.

The Seine swirls beneath him in calming patterns. _You will succeed_ , she says, for Javert cannot fail.

He seems to calm after that, staring into her waters for long minutes and his shoulders lose their stiffness. She entertains him with sparkling reflections and her best ripples, throwing light upon his face. At last, his face too relaxes into his normal expression.

“This is foolishness,” he says to himself. “I have captured them once; I can do so a second time.”

He lingers at her side in silence, content in watching her, and she is content to be the focus of his attention once more. He has not looked at her with his full attention in several days.

“I must return,” Javert mutters, finally turning away. His fingertips linger on the stone parapet. “I cannot be distracted by Valjean when there are more pressing matters at hand. There is talk of a rebellion and they must be crushed before these self-proclaimed revolutionaries organize themselves. It will bring nothing but chaos.” His lips form a frown once more. “Justice will prevail, order will be maintained. I will see it done.”

She too has heard whispers of rebellion. They meet at her banks and speak of plans, of challenging the monarchy that rules the land. She has never had reason to care about the organization of the city around her. It is just as changing as the seasons. For Javert, however, she listens. It is all very confusing. Humans are often confusing. She does not understand why there must be conflict, why they do not act as one to the benefit of all. Tributaries feed into streams and from streams she flows as a mighty river. That is order, that is nature. Man may build dams and bridges, but she still flows continuously as one body. There is no reason for strife.

Javert only grows more agitated as the whispers grow louder in volume by the day, speaking of his infiltration into one of their groups and of his disbelief at their radical ideas.

“Their ideal is fantasy,” he tells her. “It could not possibly be as perfect as they say. They mean to do away with the order of things entirely, turn France into a republic!” He laughs at that, the sound like the grinding of stone. “I will not allow it. The dragoons will be called. We will be prepared to crush their pathetic barricades when the time comes.” He scowls once more. “I only regret that it could not be nipped in the bud when a rebellion such as this was only an idea and not a reality. There will be death. The streets will be red with blood.”

He glances down at her, his expression oddly regretful.

“You will be tainted with their injustice,” he says.

She splashes against her banks in argument. _Never_ , she tells him. She is a river and rivers do not change. She simply is. There is no other way she knows how to be.

Javert’s stony face does not change. Again, his fingers linger on the parapet for long moments before he turns away for the night.

The shouting and sharp gunshots can be heard even as far away from her as they are. Few humans brave the streets this day, the city silent save for the sounds of rebellion in the distance. She worries for Javert. He is fragile, his life fleeting. It has not escaped her notice that he has aged in their short time together. His hair is greying, his steps slower, the lines on his face growing harsher by the day. He should be stone. Then he would not leave her.

She waits, her waters still and quiet. The people of Paris are just as still, just as quiet. Occasionally, the sound of a gunshot shatters the silence, then all would be still once more. Men in uniform march across the bridges above her, always in groups. There is one soldier who crosses her much later than the others, his white beard and limping stride of one far older than the average soldier. That one is odd, she thinks. He does not obey the inherent order of the others of his kind. Javert would certainly dislike him.

It rains during the night, gutters and pipes spilling the rainwater into her banks. A prelude to the blood that will be spilled. It will not be the first time that her waters are tinted rust-red nor will it be the last. She is but an observer. It was not so long ago that the silver guillotine turned her waters red. A blink in the entirety of her existence. Humans are usually not so forgetful. They record her beauty in ink on parchment and in oil on canvas, yet the fail to remember their own history.

Javert returns to her in the early hours of the morning, the sound of gunshots and canon fire filling the city and blood joining her water. He is dressed in workers clothing, his normal greatcoat missing and instead replaced with a simple brown coat. There is blood and rage on his face. He says nothing, pausing by the edge of the bridge to observe her for a moment, then he is gone once more. It is very strange. He is not often entirely silent to her, however she is happy he thought to visit her at all. He still lives to walk by her banks and that is all that matters.

The fighting continues, the canon fire receding until it is silent once more. Men in uniform sweep the streets, shouting orders to each other. Javert is one of them, again in his greatcoat and holding his iron-tipped cane. Again, he does not pause for her but he is clearly working, ordering the other men into some sort of order. She sees him several times. He never seems to rest, his face angry and his lips curled over his teeth in a snarl. When night falls, Javert is still on the streets in pursuit of a man she has often seen, a man of many different names. He is one of the Patron-Minette, one of the men who escaped the cell Javert had thrown him in. Javert loses him to the sewers and curses his name. He calls for a fiacre to wait, and stands on her banks to wait.

“He was there,” he says to her. Despite the stiffness of his shoulders, the anger on his face, he sounds defeated. It is not difficult to deduce he is speaking of Valjean. “He should have killed me.”

Her waters crash against her banks in anger. She will not see Javert killed by this criminal Valjean. She will not see her human made of stone fractured by the acts of a criminal he has bested.

“I do not know why he did not kill me,” Javert muses. “He even told me his address. Should the both of us live through this night, I will arrest him there.”

His lips pull downward and he is silent once more.

She is silent by his side, the night quiet after the barricades have been taken. Peace will reign for a little longer, but she has observed humanity long enough to know that there will always be strife. Humans are ever changing. She is not. Javert too is not.

It is long into the night when Javert stirs. A figure emerges from the sewers, and Javert identifies him as Valjean. She observes this man who has captured Javert’s attention. He is old, older than Javert, and he is tried. She sends a wave to crash against her banks to send water into the man’s eyes. Javert looks at her quizzically, then returns his attention to Valjean. The second form with Valjean is a boy, nearly dead. Javert proclaims him dead or close enough to it, but Valjean argues, wishing to return the boy to his nest.

She expects Javert to hold steady as he always has.

He gives in.

The three of them disappear into the fiacre, leaving her surprised. Had he not recently declared to arrest Valjean? Has he not always followed through on his orders? Had he not always been predictable, following a set path as a river must follow its banks?

She does not know. Her waters swirl and swallow up what little starlight there is above her. She does not understand why Javert would change. He has never changed. He is like her. He has always been like her.

Hours later, Javert returns. He is alone, face covered in shadow and his hands clasped behind his back. For long moments, he says nothing.

“The law cannot be wrong,” Javert mutters. “I cannot be wrong. Have I ever failed in my duty? Have I ever altered my course?”

 _No_ , she says in the swirling of her currents.

“No,” Javert says. “Is it possible that I have simply been blind? Have I ever truly seen?” He shakes his head. “Why must I question these things when there is no one here to answer?”

 _I am listening,_ she says. _I have always been listening_.

Javert shifts, his normal restlessness making itself known once more.

“I thought I was above these things, these questions I do not know the answer to,” Javert continues. “When have I joined society? When have I felt kinship to others? Never. Yet now I am aware of those who are suffering.” His scowl is visible even in the darkness. “I do not know what to do with empathy.”

She does not know what to do with empathy either. Javert is the only one who she has taken a liking to.

 _We are the same_ , her currents say. _We have always been the same._

Javert takes a breath. “You are correct,” he says quietly. He turns towards the prefecture. “There is something I must attend to.”

She knows he will return. He has always returned to her. He is hers, her human-shaped river to merge and flow with. There will never be another like him.

When he returns, it is with a slower step.

“I have written a list of suggestions for the betterment of the prison system,” he tells her. “There is little I can do for the police now. Valjean has opened my eyes and I no longer wish to see. I am incapable of changing.”

 _We are the same_ , she says.

“Perhaps we are the same,” he says. “My thoughts have flooded their banks as they never have before. Either I must arrest Valjean because he is a criminal, or I must let him go because he is good. I cannot do both.”

She does not understand. Rivers do not make decisions. They flow in one direction, rarely splitting in two.

“I cannot do both,” he says again, looking into her waters. “I must do neither.”

_Neither?_

“If I cannot do both, then I must do neither,” he repeats. He rests his hat on the parapet. “I cannot join society yet I cannot protect it any longer. Valjean has rendered me useless and there is no place here for someone as useless as I.” His handcuffs join his hat on the parapet.

Her waters swirl below him in confusion.

“You have been my only friend,” he tells her, now straightening with both his hands on the stone railing, “and I cannot bear being human any longer.”

She understands now. Many have ended their lives in her waters, but none wished to truly join her. She spits out their bodies for others to find so she may remain unbothered. Yet, now, here is a soul that she would be happy to keep and care for. They are the same and now they will join together.

Javert climbs to stand atop the parapet, the wind blowing his greatcoat around his calves.

“Have you always been the same?”

_Yes._

“My superiors will not be pleased when they find me dead.”

 _I will keep you_.

He exhales a breath that is not quite a laugh. “There was a river in Greece that had a boatman. I do not expect a boatman waiting for me.”

_You have no need for a boatman if you have me._

Javert smiles, looking up at the faint stars. For the first time, he looks entirely at peace.

He falls.

She catches him, her waters curling around his form even as his human body struggles for air.

 _I will keep you_ , she whispers to him.

His body stills, Javert’s bright soul escaping his cold blue lips. She cradles it carefully, as she has never held a soul before. He is beautiful. Javert does not fight her, not even as she drags both his body and soul to her depths. His body will never be found and she will carry his soul forever in her waters.

They embrace, the river and her human  united as one.


End file.
